Saturday, July 23, 2011

Stephen Colbert - I Am America (And So Can You!)

I've said this before and I'll say it again -- what's great about Stephen Colbert is that he's actually going to make history with his arrogance as an emerging, revolutionary, 21st century political satirist.

Look around -- people love him. And to be honest, I can understand why. He pulls off his "character" almost flawlessly. He pretends to be arrogant, idealistic, and conservative -- but ends up making a fool of himself, and in turn, the GOP. It really is satire at its finest.

The following is my own analysis of Colbert's 2006 book, I Am America (And So Can You!). What follows is a quote from each chapter of the book. The chosen quotes were my favorites throughout the novel, so hopefully you guys enjoy them as well.

I Am America (And So Can You!)

By Stephen Colbert

I Am America (And So Can You!) is a political satire and a parody of books by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter. Author Stephen Colbert uses oversimplification, false dichotomy, hyperbole, slippery slope, and irony to ridicule and critique contemporary American ideology and society as a whole.

Stephen Colbert plays the role of an egocentric, dogmatic, overly-patriotic faux-conservative pundit who has generously given the American public the priceless gift of criticism in “convenient book form”.

Quotes by Chapter

The Family

“No, my problem is not the children themselves. They may be cute, but they are here to replace us. Need proof? Ever catch one walking around in your shoes? That’s a chilling moment, like finding an empty body snatcher pod in the basement. ‘But children are our future!’ Yes, but does that not also mean that we are their past? I don’t understand why we’re helping them. You don’t see union factory workers throwing a benefit for robots.”

Old People

“I’m not doing to win any awards for saying this, but the elderly are like rude party guests. They came early, they’re always in the bathroom, and now they just won’t leave. I say we do the same thing to them that I do with stragglers at my shin-digs. Put them to work cleaning the place up. Only this time, the place is called America. Let’s use ‘em to shut down our porous Southern Border. One thing Old People have a knack for is keeping kids of their lawn….I say, let’s build a 2000-mile-long front porch along our border with Mexico and line it with the angry aged. When the Mexicans try to cross, they’ll be turned into Mexican’ts when a million Grampas bellow: ‘Get off my country! I just seeded!’”

Animals

“Some would have our children believe that animals are cute and cuddly. IT starts the day we bring baby Kyle or Kylie or Kayla or Katilyn or Kelsie home from the hospital to a room wallpapered in adorable little yellow ducks. Why aren’t these ducks being pursued by adorable little yellow hunters? I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet that it has something to do with the Far Left media’s control of the wallpaper industry. (Yesm I consider the wallpaper industry part of the media. IT has the word “paper” in it.)”

Religion

“Imagine a time in the not-too-distant future – December 24th, but instead of festive lights and glowing Santas, the streets are illuminated by police helicopters. Meanwhile, in the streets, roving gangs of children terrorize the city. They have zero respect for authority because whether a child is naughty or nice, everyone gets the same thing for Christmas: Jack Squat. So they’ve gone wild. It’s like Devil’s Night in Detroit, only there’s still stuff worth burning. As the fires rage, bands of depressed alcoholic derelicts, once jolly carolers, shuffle aimlessly, no longer sharing their cheerful seasonal hymns, but instead searching for a death that will never come. God rest ye, merry Gentlemen. And of course, now that there’s no Christmas, insects have grown to enormous size. So everyone has to doge to ants and beetles that are crushing buses in their powerful mandibles. Does my vision of a world without Christmas sound far-fetched? This is exactly the future the Secul-azis want for your children and grandchildren. Big Secularism’s plan is to keep eroding our holiday. Little by little, they’re taking away a manger here, a “Come All Ye Faithful” there, until pretty soon there’s nothing left. That’s why we’ve got to dig in our heels and celebrate the holiday bigger than ever. If you usually get one tree, this year get two. If you usually do two, have five. The BSists need to understand that there is no number of trees we are unwilling to cut down to prove our point.”

Sports

“So, if I’m no cheerleader of sports, why write a chapter about it? Sports do have some positive impact on society. They solve problems, such as how to get inner-city kids to spend $175 on shoes. They serve as a backdrop for some of our most memorable commercials. And they remain the one and only relevant application of math.”

Homosexuals

“Now I’ve got nothing against gay people. I just don’t like how they flaunt it. I’m perfectly fine with someone choosing to be gay, as long as he marries a woman and has kids like the rest of us. And if he has to flaunt it, there’s a place for that: in the privacy of his own home. Which should be a jail cell. We all know that people in prison engage in homosexual acts, right? Which means that criminals are more likely to be homosexuals. So wouldn’t it save us a lot of tax dollars to simply throw all gay people in prison? You know, cut out the middleman.”

Higher Education

“Just exactly what makes colleges so dangerous? It’s the fact that their classrooms and lecture halls are filled with a poison known as New Ideas. New Ideas hurt Americans in two ways:

Let me ask you this: why were you happier when you were a kid? Because you didn’t know anything. The more you know, the sadder you get. Don’t believe me? By the time you finish reading this chapter, over a hundred dogs and cats in animals shelters around the nation will have been euthanized. Bet you wish you could erase that knowledge. But it’s too late. You learned a New Idea, and it made you sad. College is just more of the same.”

Hollywood

“That shining city that only cares about money has an underbelly that only cares about saving the world. It’s getting to America can’t ignore the tiniest humanitarian crisis without some big movie star going on Access Hollywood to bitch about it.”

Class War

“Now I’m not the smartest knife in the spoon, so explain this to me. We’re supposed to help folks out of poverty by giving them a financial reward for being poor? Doesn’t add up. If being poor is a never-ending money party, where’s the incentive to get rich”

Race

“Affirmative action is a prime example of the Leftist campaign to make ideas seem less dangerous than they are, through the strategic use of positive words. Think about it. How can something be bad if iti is “affirimative”? And how can we ignore it if it is “action”? See, its name does nothing to describe what “affirmative action” actually is: a system that rewards Group A and punishes Group B just because long ago something bad happened to Group A that incidentally made Group B a whole lot of money.”

Immigrants

“So let’s take that beautiful idea to a logical conclusion and not only leave the past behind but deny that past ever happened. Like this:America is not a land of immigrants.
There. Was that so hard to say? It makes sense if you think about it. It feels like we’ve been here forever, doesn’t it? Let’s just assume we have been.”

Science

“If I may quote myself: Reality has a well-known liberal bias. And who can you depend on to kowtow to reality like it’s the only game in town? Scientists. They do it religiously. With their fanatical devotion, scientists are no better than cult members – only difference is that they put their blind faith in empirical observation instead of in a drifter who marries 14-year-olds and declares himself the reincarnation of Ramses II.”

If you enjoyed the quotes, you might be interested in reading his book. It's a quick, fun, and humorous read. I would highly recommend it.

Be sure to let me know which quotes were your favorite or if you have any other feedback on Stephen Colbert in general.

I think the best part of this post might be Stephen wrapped in an American flag, that's a vision of America we can all get behind. All of the quotes were awesome, I loved his idea about getting old people to keep Mexicans out xD They're just all so good I can't pick a favourite, Colbert really is that awesome.